Shloka 36
कर्णपरर्वणि त्रयोचत्वारिंशदध्यायः (Karṇa-parva Adhyāya 43) — Kṛṣṇa’s Battlefield Assessment and the Reversal Around Bhīma
सक्तुमद्यावलिप्तेषु श्वावलीढेषु निर्घणा: । आविकं चौष्टिकं चैव क्षीरं गार्दभमेव च
saktumadyāvalipteṣu śvāvalīḍheṣu nirghaṇāḥ | āvikaṃ cauṣṭikaṃ caiva kṣīraṃ gārdabhameva ca
Karna said: “They are utterly without compassion—feeding on flour mixed with liquor, on food licked by dogs, and even drinking milk taken from a ewe, a she-camel, and a she-ass.” In this denunciation, Karna frames the opposing side as having fallen into impurity and moral degradation, using images of defiled and socially condemned foods to imply a collapse of restraint, dignity, and dharmic conduct amid the brutalizing pressures of war.
कर्ण उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse uses the language of defilement and socially censured consumption to portray a loss of compassion and restraint. Ethically, it illustrates how wartime hostility can turn into dehumanizing rhetoric—equating opponents with impurity to justify contempt—thereby warning how easily dharmic discernment is eclipsed by anger and factional hatred.
In Karna Parva, Karna is speaking in a heated context of battlefield rivalry and denunciation. Here he characterizes the enemy as ‘merciless’ and morally degraded, listing impure/condemned foods and milks as vivid markers of disgrace, aiming to shame and delegitimize them before or during combat.